I decided to try out automatons for the first time. Things were going smoothly until I ran out of coal for a while. Two of my automatons were unable to refuel. I found them sitting in a corner asleep (showing zzz). Their status showed idle, fuel at 0%. they were never refueled by gnomes. I thought, okay, I'll disassemble them and rebuild them. So I clicked disassemble for each one, and now they're sitting in the corner, asleep, with the disassemble button pressed.

My questions:

What is required for a gnome to refuel an automaton that has run out of fuel, and what is required for an automaton to be disassembled?

Okay, after experimenting with a new game, i now know that disassembly requires the automaton walking to the engineer's shop.And apparently the automatons have to be able to walk to coal to refuel.

So what do you do when an automaton runs out of fuel? there's no way to refuel it, no way to disassemble it. it just sits there taking up a spot on the floor and a spot in your population for the rest of eternity?

I think it's the mechanic task your gnomes need. Should be the same task as refueling a steam engine, operating a hand crank or resetting traps.

I have every you're of work task represented in my gnomes´ professions, and I'm pretty sure some of my Smith/mechanic gnomes were idling in the great hall while I was waiting for the automatons to be refueled.